Yesterday I had some time to get a few flights in near my house in the mist of the holiday and some remodeling madness at home and had an experience with my I1 that I have not had to deal with.

For the record I am using the Android platform App and software and firmware is up to date. and I just got this I1 back from DJI service last Thursday.

So I just recently got my I1 back from service and flew Friday and Saturday and the only complaint I had was the same as before and that was under full accelereation (forward) while full throttle for increasing elevation my inspire would rotate clockwise and start to change course without me wanting it to (not radical change of course and easily correctable).

Yesterday I did my normal routine of double checking the IMU settings and then as always before every flight (regardless of change of location or not) calibrate the compass. Everything looked normal with no issues. I started the motors and raised I1 to an elevation of about 4' where I typically do a recheck to make sure everything was ok. I was doing its normall moving around in a square box (about 2' to each axis) so I lowered it back down and recalibrated it again. Took off back to 4' and it still have the Box flight going but was down to about 6" (seems to be the normal on both my I1 and my neighbors) so I moved on with the flight.

I started to move forward while increasing throttle for elevation and about 5 seconds my App displayed "motors starting" & the mode display "was flashing red and displayed "Compasas Error", however I had no control thru my remote.

The I1 then dropped elevation and darted off in a slow counter clockwise rotation while accellerating to full throttle acceleration forward torward some large trees and some parked cars (about 40yards fromwhere it took off). Call it an Act of luck my I1 had enough elevation to clear the cars in the parking spots and was low enough to fly under the branches and leaves of the trees and also happen to fly between the trunks of the trees (yeah dont ask me how that worked out but im thankful it did)

The I1 went about another 50 yards heading toward a maintance building and about 15 yards from the building my display then displayed "motors starting" and the mode changed to green flashing "OK to fly GPS mode" and then immediently went into a hover state where it then stopped and I had control again. Now I have flown in Atti mode several times before however I had basically no control of the I1 when this happened till this last even happend.

I immedetly landed it and got it back to my house. I started checking things and the IMU was now WAY out of calibration and the compass was not calibrated. I decideed to brave it and recalibrated the IMU and then the compass and took it or another flight and this time it was flawless (aside from the normal counter clockwise drifting issue when under full elevation and forward direciton throttle). I did some recharges and flew it 6 more times yesterday afer this happend and there was no additional issues.


Any ideas??

I would say IMU was not calibrated but I confirmed that every time I fly, compass gets calibrated before every flight and every battery and it also does not explain the loss of controller response. So confused. Im jusrt nervous that if it happens once it can happen again.  Local interference? enviornmental anomoloeis? It was jsut at DJI and they flew it with no issues. User error?

I also flew the other Inspire that I have access to yesterday and there was no issues with those flights as well. So this is all focused around that single flight.

I have not experienced this particular issue of "motors starting" after flight. However I have experienced your full acceleration pitch forward counter clockwise movement. That wasn't present (to the best of my knowledge before my repair and crash) I've noticed it also doesn't happen on every occurrence but I'm still trying to figure out why. Any thoughts from what you experienced?

As far as no control on your remote during this situation, you say you have flown a bit in ATTI, was it in ATTI at the start or GPS? was this a location you have flown before in, with no other issues?

Mkell_CA_SF.BAY Posted at 2015-4-7 02:50
I have not experienced this particular issue of "motors starting" after flight. However I have exper ...

No my standard flight preference is GPS.  I ventured into ATTI mode a few times in the past to see how it does vs my other non GPS enables Quads simply out of Morbid Curiosity. But this was back in February.

I am positive that I was not in Atti mode when I started. This is actually part of my check list. I check and verify switch mode on the RX as well as once powered up motors started and also at first hover. Not a surprise I want unexpectedly when I feel like I'm in that comfort zone of GPS enabled.

As far as my thoughts I feel the slight Counter-Clockwise rotation issue on full acceleration is firmware related as it is consist and equal on both birds I fly. For this temporary flyaway I have gone over it in my head over and over and over and part of me says equipment issue but then after repeated flights with no issues prior or after like this the other part of me wants to look at environmental or some anomolie.

I have flown at this same location probably the majority of my flights as its close, relatively open and unobstructed and available. I love this spot as I can use it to practice control movements to focus on details objects and also work on combination movements in attempt to smoothen out my movements when filming stuff for videos vs just out screwing around in the air having fun like in do in other flighs when video is not of importance.   

I do not plan to ground my I1 but I will proceed with extreme caution and not be doing any of the close proximity flying that I have been doing in some of my videos ive been wroking on for a bit till I get back into a comfort zone.

Interesting, since I haven't experienced this, were you recording at all during this issue, does the flight data available and does it show any other information at the point where you lost the ability to control it? I have had two occasions where my app has displayed a disconnected status during flight. The app went totally black, and stayed that way for about ten seconds, but i still had flight control through the sticks. It came back up shortly after, and everything was then normal. I suspect maybe there was a bad connection with the camera gimbal mounted on the inspire but I don't know for sure.

It hasn't deterred me from flying, the only thing I can do is keep flying and document when it happens again. Outside of the compass error message or losing gps for a moment upon first flight It has been rock solid on other flights.

Do you know if you re booted your pilot app before this flight?

The only times my bird acts funny (so far) is in the simulator ... After going in and out of the "camera" testing different settings it seams as if it gets a bit "lost" ...
The problems go away after I restart the app!
So I allways re boot the app before every flight ... Making sure not to start the app before everything is up and running ...

Prior to sending it in for service I had frequent issues with "loss of signal" however that was only video transmission to the App. The camera still took photos, took video etc. They did something while at DJI and as far as the flights Ive had since it got back it has not had one single issue like that. So they fixed something in that department. Also, even though it was not a complaint there is now ZERO wobble noticeable at hover from my arms which it did have a little noticeable instability at hover before.

In the case of this individual flight I was more messing around with it to see how it flew after it came back from service. So I wasn't shooting video yet as I typically visually LOS watch the first moments of my I1 being in the air just to make sure everything is OK before I focus on just my screen for things like focused video shoots. I just have never had a reason to start shooting video till I focus on one individual item or purpose and in this case it was the last thing on my mind when it took off.

One thing I forgot to mention in the original post was that when it went back to hover and GPS mode it had reset the home point to that specific position. Not sure if that means anything.

But I am with you aside from this issue, my I1 has been pretty damn solid aside form a few small quirks which have all been nothing more than just an annoyance and livabe and still more than usable.  Overall been very happy with it. Althought this did help me skip a heart beat.

w1der Posted at 2015-4-7 03:40
Do you know if you re booted your pilot app before this flight?

The only times my bird acts funny  ...

Yes, between batteries and flights I restart the app with the outlook of every flight regardless of if I was just in the air is another "first flight of the day". also do my check list before every flight regardless if I had just landed and changed batteries.

Look like this?

tpoznanski0331 Posted at 2015-4-7 09:52
https://youtu.be/40B5Yo6hgok

Look like this?

It has some similarities'. He still had some control, mine was on its own flight path and I had no control until it started to hover. Really wishing I had it recording from the start O flight on this one

Really scary!   Glad it ended okay but can't believe your luck.   The odds must be 1000 to 1 from how you described the terrain!   

Simply counting my blessings on this one.  

Flew again last night, same location, same take off spot. No issues just like the rest of the post issue flights. Im just baffled at this point.

this is a known bug (compass error switch to atti mode ) it lasts for A few seconds and the new firmware is supposed to fix that. My solution is to fly from very start to high altitude at least 50 feet away from trees and houses ...so if compass error happens you have time and more important space to take evasive action...it almost always lasts about 5-10 seconds and gives you gps control back.... it is almost always in the beginning of the flight (hence quick climb in beginning of flight)
Lessons i have learned
*** height is your friend
*** it never happens late in flight almost always first few seconds minutes of the flight
*** Learn to fly atti mode (manual) if not familiar
*** always compass caliberate new location

arun

Glad you saved it. I had a similar experience for the first time a few days ago. I've had my I1 for a month or so, a bunch of flights, have gone through both batteries a couple times in ATTI mode so am quite comfortable flying in that mode. Also have a Phantom 2 that I've had and flown for over a year. This one caught me by surprise. Fortunately it was high and in wide open space when it happened.

Launched in GPS mode, IMU checked, compass calibrated, etc. It was pretty windy & I wanted to shoot some video over a winding river and lake, so I went up to about 200', had flown a couple minutes, then the bird started haulin ass downwind. I glanced down & saw that it had switched to P-ATTI, then P-OPTI mode. I switched to ATTI manually,  turned it around and flew it back, by this time it had recovered GPS signal. Luckily it was high and in empty space when it happened.  Looking at my flight log afterward, it had accelerated to 42 mph downwind & gone over 600' horizontally before I recovered it. I was just lucky that there was nothing around to hit. Flew the rest of the battery with no problems.

As arunmehta mentioned in the previous post, it happened in the first couple minutes of flight, after that no problem. Definitely altitude & open space are your friends, as I've also learned from 15 years flying paragliders. Might consider flying the first few minutes of each flight in ATTI mode. I do enjoy flying in ATTI mode, but for shooting video and trying to frame a shot, I want to be able to depend on GPS mode. Hope the new firmware update fixes this once and for all.

I agree if you have time, spend some of it learning Atti mode so that you help prepare for those times you need it. I have flown a few times with the I1 in Atti mode since I got it to see how it compares to my other non GPS enabled. I think the biggest issue is when it makes that switch you not being ready or expecting that switch. Yeah altitude is KEY.  lol

Glad to hear that there has been other people with a similar style issue. Just still not sure on the loss of control ability. However like both of you said, it only happened at the very beginning that one time and then its been great since.

Thinking my best course is to not change my current course of precaution and keep on flying. Hoping this issue is a one time deal. If its a known bug I hope they can identify it, reproduce it, debug it and fix it.

Thanks guys.

I think the people with this errors calibrate their Imu way to much.
If I get your post right you calibrated it twice directly before your flight ?

I never did one with my I1 since all parameters are ok
I would never do one without a crash or new parts installed.

I never had a single issue. Got over 200 flights

Edit: just saw he calibrate the compass every flight.
If you don't move 1000 of miles it's not necessary AND could create these kind of problems
A stable machine is the most important thing to have

Create a local parameter setup you can rely on.
Don't change it all day

w1der Posted at 2015-4-7 03:40
Do you know if you re booted your pilot app before this flight?

The only times my bird acts funny  ...

That's probably a really good procedure to adopt, I think I will from now on, maybe even a tablet restart before flying the I1 to ensure only the needed bits are running (I use iPad, so other apps can stay running in background).

Other kit is use in my work often gets a full restart after all setting up and saving of settings, just so it has a fresh & clean workspace, as it seems more stable that way.

Thanks

kappaOS Posted at 2015-4-8 14:08
I think the people with this errors calibrate their Imu way to much.
If I get your post right you c ...

Basically ... If you get a nice clean flight after calibration ... Stick with that one !
Unless you travel "a loooong distance" in between flights ...

If it aint broken ... Don't fix it

Actually I calibrate the IMU if the parameters are out of whack it if there has been any noticeable changes. However I do calibrate the compass before every flight (especially when changing physical locations) as I've had several occasions where it displays thinks like "compass error" or even "non-GPS flight ok" until the compass is recalibrated or cases where even flying two days in a row at my house it wont take off without drifting all over the place until I recalibrate the compass. I have had a much higher and more significant succeeds with stability by doing the compass calibration over not doing it

Had the same loss of control and jump to ATTI yesterday.  Switched manually to ATTI and then back, flew a few more seconds and then GPS re-established. So like everyone else is experiencing.  Towards the end of the flight I initiated a Return To Home just as a test and it flew towards the point that it re-established GPS, not the original takeoff spot, so it does appear that this problem resets the home point. Good to know...

I Had a fly away today on I1, started up with no issues raised to Appx 10 feet got gps signal and all hell broke loose.  It just went up Appx 60 feet and all the time i was pushing down stick which would just keep i1 from continue to go up. Was pushing RTH and auto land with no luck and then it happened lost control and up and away out of sight and straight up into clouds........gone and very scary.....going to send files to dji tomorrow

I get this issue every time we take off but only after it goes past the height that vision position system stops working. It only last 10 or so seconds but we have got use to expecting it... scary the first flight we did with it and it drifted away... wasn't till one of us took over the remote while the other looked at the app did we see the gps was gone, after bringing it back the gps returned. We are using the latest firmware update so i hope they can fix it. We now have two remotes with two screens so we can monitor the flights and I have read a few other posts showing this issue

david@tri-techn Posted at 2015-4-9 09:48
I Had a fly away today on I1, started up with no issues raised to Appx 10 feet got gps signal and al ...

I feel your pain david.

May I suggest the following......Go to the nearest pharmacy and ask for a truck load of heavy duty tablets to relieve frustration and anger then go to the nearest hardware store to purchase a brick to continually bang your head against when the tablets stop working.

I had an uncontrolled event like yours, craft destroyed. Flew p-atti due to NO gps signal. After 8 min with bird in front of me for landing got rc signal loss. Off it went to god knows where, still without GPS!!
DJI response from flight logs was failed GPS and falty accelerometer. Oddly enough though, RC signal loss did not show up in flight logs. Great, no pilot error, identifed fault on aircraft so replacement on its way.

THINK AGAIN...... 4 weeks I am later still waiting for a resolution. After sending the same information to different folk at DJI, I am now told that everyone is trying to decide who is going to pay for the postage to send it back to DJI.

TOO much time spent preparing the fancy product launches I am afraid, the back end is months behind the front end imho.

Good luck david, hopefully you will not become as UN INSPIRED as I am at the moment  

DJI >>>> THERE IS NO POINT SELLING A PRODUCT IF YOU CANNOT SERVICE IT, PROVIDE SPARE PARTS FOR IT OR OFFER SOME BLOODY BASIC CUSTOMER SERVICE. :@

Wolfman Posted at 2015-4-9 14:31
I feel your pain david.

May I suggest the following......Go to the nearest pharmacy and ask for  ...

Wolf thanks for the support....scary fly away not sure I want to have issue again.......hard to hit RTH and down throttle 100 of time to no success